Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist | The $500 Million Art Theft Still Unsolved After 36 Years
On the night of March 18, 1990, two men dressed as Boston police officers approached the side entrance of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. They buzzed the intercom, told the security guard they were responding to a disturbance call, and asked to be let in. It was 1:24 AM. The guard, a 23-year-old Berklee College of Music student named Rick Abath, broke protocol and opened the door.
What followed over the next 81 minutes would become the largest property theft in world history — thirteen works of art valued at over $500 million, vanished into the night. Thirty-six years later, not a single piece has been recovered.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
